davidgagne.net » My Life

Friday Five: Best Los Angeles Restaurants

dvg — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:07:27 +0000

The Ivy
Mr. Chow
Blue Plate Oysterette
The Palm
Osteria Latini
Honorable Mentions: Giorgio Baldi, James Beach

© David Vincent Gagne, 2013. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food, fridayfive, lists, Los Angeles, My Life, restaurants

Before You Came into My Life

dvg — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:24:10 +0000

I’ve had my Nike Fuel Band for 294 days. I know this because one of the statistics it tracks is how many days you’ve been “active”, and I have worn it every single day since I got it. I can’t begin to tell you what a great motivational tool it is. I am a little more than a month away from 40 and I’m in the best shape of my life. (Yes, including the time I spent rowing on Florida Crew.)

The Nike Fuel Band comes in three colors: black (the original), black ice, and white ice. The black ice and white ice versions were released several months after the original. Kelly gave me an original black for my birthday last year and I instantly fell in love with it. I only removed it when I went to sleep, which was its doom. The Band — like everything and everybody — has an Achilles’ heel.

You see, you can resize the band by adding or removing a little spacer. The spacer is held in place by an ingenious little spring mechanism. It comes with a little tool designed specifically to fit through a tiny hole in the band to press the spring and release the catch so you can change the spacers. (You could use a paper clip to do this; you don’t really need the “tool”.) And here is the problem. The band itself is waterproof. (The packaging says it’s only water resistant, but for all intents and purposes it is waterproof.) But the tiny spring is not. It is susceptible to rust. It will take a long, long time for it to degrade, because there is only a very tiny hole through which any water can get to it. But after about nine months of sweat and showers and more than a few swimming pools, it rusted to the point where it just disintegrated.

I took my broken Fuel Band to the Beverly Hills Nike Store the night it broke and they exchanged it immediately, even though I didn’t have a receipt and it was obvious that the tiny screw had rusted away which isn’t supposed to be covered by their warranty. The only snag was that they didn’t have any of the original black ones, so I had to get a black ice one. They changed the size system at some point in October 2012, too, so instead of an XL I had to get a M/L, which was a little bit tighter.

I didn’t like the black ice version at all. The digital display was very difficult to read because the band is semi-transparent, so the LEDs bled into each other. The clasp on the black ice (and the white ice) is made out of plastic instead of metal and didn’t feel nearly as secure. And, like I said, it was a little bit tighter on my wrist. I tried using the larger spacer, but that was too loose, so I had to live with it.

With the new one I was aware of the potential for rusting the screw, so I removed it every time I took a shower. But it turns out I was right about the plastic clasp. It only lasted about two months and simply broke one day while I was playing basketball with my son. The plastic cracked and the Band flew off my wrist and I spent about ten minutes trying to find the little pieces in my driveway.

The next day I returned to the Beverly Hills Nike Store and they again exchanged it with no problem. And this time they had the original black in stock, so I feel much better about that. The metal clasp is definitely sturdier than the plastic.

Oh, and if you want to challenge me, I’m GatorDavid in the Nike universe.

Continue reading Before You Came into My Life ...

Scribbled Drunk on a Postcard, Sent from Somewhere Volcanoes Are

dvg — Sat, 04 May 2013 06:55:40 +0000

It’s tough to be upset about a day that includes a ten-mile run before breakfast, lunch at The Stand, and a trip to Disneyland. But here we are. For the very first time since Kelly gave me my Nike Fuel Band almost a year ago, I didn’t wear it all day. I started leaving it on the bathroom counter when I take a shower, and I simply forgot it. I made my 4000-point goal easily by running ten miles, but then I didn’t earn any more points until I got home from work around five-thirty.

I managed to have my best Friday ever — 7537 points — because Nike technology is intelligent enough to acknowledge that chasing a toddler around Disneyland for four and a half hours is good exercise. But it should have been my new best day ever. (That’s currently stuck on January 7th, 2013, when I racked up 8836 points by running a half-marathon before going into the office.) That irks me. But, man, there’s nothing better than seeing how excited my son gets when he realizes we’re at The Happiest Place on Earth, so I can’t complain too much.

I just finished a 10.0 mi run with a pace of 8’55″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/5gm1v9c #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) May 3, 2013

Continue reading Scribbled Drunk on a Postcard, Sent from Somewhere Volcanoes Are ...

It Ought to Be Easier

dvg — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:08:18 +0000

It’s really hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that Tim might not make it in the NFL. It seems absurd to me. When my alarm rang at six this morning, there was a text waiting for me that read, “Heard Tebow was cut from NPR before ESPN.” My first thought was that finally he’d be free of the dumpster fire that is the NY Jets. But by the time I was a mile into my run all that was on my mind was my mom.

She adored Timmy, of course. All he did was win. And he ~~was~~ is a Gator. And he’s a good Christian boy. And he didn’t cheat or play dirty or showboat or do anything like that. He put his whole heart and soul into every game and he bulldozed his way through defenses like a dump truck, driven by passion. How could she not love a guy like that? How could anyone not love a guy like that?

And I was thinking about how hard every day has been since she died. It’s impossible — still, after almost nine months — for me to not instinctively reach for my phone to call her a few dozen times each day. I’m sure at some point that will fade, but for now it just sucks that off-season news about an NFL quarterback can bring me to tears.

I just didn’t have the motivation to get into a groove, and headed home after just a few miles.

I just finished a 3.17 mi run with a pace of 9’20″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/2ij4ulu #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) April 29, 2013

Continue reading It Ought to Be Easier ...

© David Vincent Gagne, 2013. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: college football, exercise, mom, music, My Life, NFL, running, Tebow

Gonna Fly Now

dvg — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:40:55 +0000

I have been absolutely nuts for oranges and orange juice lately. I remember when I was a little kid I would go through phases during which I craved OJ like mad, but it’s been probably twenty-five years since the last time that happened. But now I’m drinking two or three glasses every morning and eating an orange (or two or three) every day, too. And after I run or lift weights, I don’t even want water; I just want OJ. Lucky for me they’re absurdly inexpensive here in LA right now. We can get a big bag of seedless Navel oranges for $3.99.

Anyway … Here are some of the things that were on my mind while I ran this morning:

Is it possible to get too much vitamin C in your diet?
How am I going to deal with Mother’s Day this year? I’m already feeling like I’m getting gut-punched by ads constantly.
What are the chances of an average person getting struck and killed by a meteorite?
How could I have possibly gone so long not realizing that, “Handle me with care,” is the verse in the chorus of The Traveling Wilburys song Handle with Care?
How many heartbeats do we get?
Will my child(ren) respect / love The Beatles?
Is the first Rocky a perfect film? Why did I prefer Rocky II when I was a kid?
Why in the world is there a circa 1970 grey sedan up on blocks on the side of the road in the middle of Beverly Hills?

I just finished a 8.16 mi run with a pace of 9’06″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/0843s94n #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) April 22, 2013

Continue reading Gonna Fly Now ...

Best Wishes to Your Black Lung

dvg — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:07:11 +0000

I’m trying every day to simply (!) meet my Nike Fuel Points goal. I can’t stand looking at my Fuel Band late at night and seeing I still need to exercise a bit to hit 4,000 points. So I’ve been making a serious effort to knock out as many points as I can as early in the day as possible. A ten mile run before eight AM will do that nicely. I hit over 4,300 points before breakfast and was able to relax for the rest of the day.

I just finished a 10.0 mi run with a pace of 9’23″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/09s4aimn #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) April 12, 2013

Continue reading Best Wishes to Your Black Lung ...

Eight

dvg — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:27:22 +0000

Today makes it eight months since my mom died. She died on August 12^th. I was sitting in the car in the parking lot of Centinela Feed on Pico, waiting with my son for my wife to get some cat food, when my phone rang. A nurse at Woodland Terrace named Ida Alvis — a woman with whom I’d spent the better part of the previous day and night arguing hopelessly about mom’s condition and medication — called to tell me that another nurse had found her “unresponsive” and paramedics were taking her to the hospital.

That was the beginning of the tsunami. I’ve felt more of less like I was drowning since that moment. She taught me how to swim, but I miss her so much.

I Will Never Believe in Anything Again

dvg — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:17:30 +0000

I did not feel like getting out of bed this morning, much less running. I don’t know if I caught some sort of flu or just a cold or what, but I had a nasty scratch in the back of my throat every time I swallowed, and my head felt thick and cloudy. But rather than hit the snooze button and head back to dreamland, I pulled on my running shoes and hit the road, Jack.

Maybe, I thought, getting my heart pumping and producing some endorphins and all that jazz will help me knock myself back into shape. And I think it worked. By the time I got back to the house, dripping with sweat and heart-pounding, I felt much better. After some Greek yogurt with granola, a bowl of raisin bran, a half grapefruit, an orange, a tall glass of orange juice, a half-gallon of ice water, and a coffee, I felt fantastic.

I just finished a 6.30 mi run with a pace of 9’33″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/670km8a #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) April 5, 2013

Continue reading I Will Never Believe in Anything Again ...

When You Love Someone But It Goes to Waste

dvg — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:35:47 +0000

After eating a lot of chocolate and hunting all over the house for eggs and a brunch at Lakeside which included a pretty strong Bloody Mary and watching a crushing Gators loss in the Elite Eight, I needed to hit the road. I gave myself a solid couple of hours to digest and then knocked out a seven mile route through Beverly Hills.

The weather was perfect for a run, so that was nice. I felt like I was on the verge of vomiting the whole time, so that was less than nice.

I just finished a 7.00 mi run with a pace of 8’45″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/021kou9l #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) April 1, 2013

Continue reading When You Love Someone But It Goes to Waste ...

One More Holiday I Will Not Celebrate

dvg — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 05:57:01 +0000

My mom loved Easter. She had a fondness for Cadbury eggs, even though — if I remember correctly — she almost never ate one because they upset her stomach terribly. When we were very, very young she used to play three or four songs on her guitar and we’d all sing along. I know probably everyone thinks this about their mothers, but she really did have an incredibly beautiful singing voice.

And of course she baked Easter bread. Oh, man. That was some crazy delicious treat, made even more enjoyable because she only ever made it once each year. A dozen loaves she’d make. It took forever, and she was so careful. She’d braid the bread into patterns, and usually bake an Easter egg right into the crust. They were fantastic creations. She would wrap them in aluminum foil and ship me a couple of loaves while I was at UF, and she continued to send me a loaf or two almost every year since then.

She’d try to coax me into returning to Florida every Spring by promising me that she’d make me Easter bread. And when I invariably couldn’t (or wouldn’t) be there, she’d mail me some anyway.

I found a recipe for something she referred to as “Nana’s Sweet Bread” on the 3×5 index card. The instructions don’t look like they could possibly yield the same result as her Easter bread, and there’s no way I can bring myself to attempt it this year, my first one without her. But maybe one year I’ll try.

These are the things I was thinking as I ran through Los Angeles this morning at dawn. It’s been a little more than seven months now and I haven’t made it through a run yet without having to wipe away some tears.

I just finished a 8.01 mi run with a pace of 9’05″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/6dius2t #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) March 25, 2013

Continue reading One More Holiday I Will Not Celebrate ...

© David Vincent Gagne, 2013. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Easter, exercise, holidays, mom, music, My Life, running

Six Months

dvg — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:00:49 +0000

Today marks the six month anniversary of my mother’s death.

She died on Sunday, August 12, 2012.

Not every month is the same length, though, of course. And should I consider “a month” to be “every four Sundays” or simply “the next 12th on the calendar”? It’s the sort of question she would call to ask me, or I would call to ask her. And we’d laugh and we’d both think it was funny that the other person was always bothered by that sort of thing.

I miss the sound of her voice.

No person who ever lives will ever be as happy to receive a phone call from me as my mother was every single time I called her.

Runnin’ Down a Dream

dvg — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:30:08 +0000

It was raining when I got home last night so I was worried I’d have another soaking run, but when I hit the road this morning the sun was rising and the clouds had mostly disappeared. It was pretty brisk — low 60s, I’m guessing — but I ran hard to compensate for the pizza and beer at last night’s office Christmas party and was nice and warm after a mile or two.

Usually I shoot for five miles on Thursdays, but I decided to knock out a 10k today instead. A 10k is just a little less than six and a quarter miles, I learned from my Nike Running app. Bad route-estimating on my part led to me hitting a full seven miles before I made it back to the house, though. (I knew I shouldn’t have added the extra loop into Beverly Hills, but I love seeing all the Hannukah lights competing with the Christmas lights over there.)

Sidebar: Yesterday I learned that Norah Jones is the daughter of the recently-deceased Ravi Shankar. I’m learning something new every day!

Continue reading Runnin’ Down a Dream ...

I’m Not Okay

dvg — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:26:43 +0000

Okay, so there weren’t icicles on the eaves when I left the house this morning. But 49°F is freezing once you’ve lived in Southern California for over a decade. I’ve also never been able to run in anything but shorts, and I have to stick with something incredibly light — a t-shirt — if I’m going more than five miles or else the weight of my sweat becomes an issue. It took me a solid three miles before I was warm enough that I didn’t care about the temperature.

The sky was insanely gorgeous this morning. Venus and the crescent moon in the shocking clear dawn over the city were phenomenal. The Christmas trees and lights all over Century City and Beverly Hills were sparkling. Even the obese homeless guy that lives in front of the Bank of America on Pico seemed cheerful as he was stacking plastic grocery bags of yellow pages in his shopping cart.

I just finished a 13.2 mi run with a pace of 9’35″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/09n7r7r8 #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) December 10, 2012

Continue reading I’m Not Okay ...

The Last Song

dvg — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 15:40:47 +0000

It was incredibly difficult to roll out of bed at five-fifteen this morning, but I did. It’s been (very uncharacteristically) raining for several days in Los Angeles and it was just a wet, dark, miserable morning for a run. But about two miles into it and I started to feel better, and by the time I hit five miles I was loose and cruising.

I was positively drenched with sweat and rain after about fifteen minutes. My t-shirt felt like it weighed twenty pounds. I was very happy to notice that my knee didn’t bother me at all. I didn’t even think of it until I had hit ten miles, and then only because I realized it wasn’t hurting.

I just finished a 13.3 mi run with a pace of 9’46″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/8j825hh #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) December 3, 2012

Continue reading The Last Song ...

They Just Seem a Little Weird

dvg — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:27:36 +0000

I’ve been trying to consistently go for a really long run on Monday mornings and a “regular” run on Thursday mornings. I’ve done a pretty good job at it for about three months now; I even managed to get in a five-miler on Thanksgiving.

This morning while coming down Century Park towards Olympic, a man on a bike came towards me wearing a black hoodie and a frighteningly realistic skeleton full-face mask. At six in the morning, just about everyone you see is scary. So you can imagine how much that guy freaked me out.

I also saw a crushed and empty box of Trojan Magnum condoms in front of the “European luxury” hotel on Westwood, and a half-full, uncapped gallon of milk sitting next to a bus bench on Santa Monica.

I just finished a 13.0 mi run with a pace of 9’40″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/6vkdvgq #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) November 26, 2012

My right knee was killing me by the time I got back to the house, which concerns me. It seems that about twelve miles is the maximum I can travel before something twinges in there and starts hurting. (It’s fine now, though.)

Continue reading They Just Seem a Little Weird ...

I Need a Dump Truck, Mama, to Unload My Head

dvg — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:15:48 +0000

I spent all day Sunday in a cloudy-headed funk, so I went on a nice long run this morning.

I just finished a 10.0 mi run with a pace of 9’43″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/03c91p07 #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) November 19, 2012

Continue reading I Need a Dump Truck, Mama, to Unload My Head ...

It Could Be All Downhill from Here

dvg — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:24:30 +0000

Nothing exciting at all today. Just a brisk run in the cold. 55°F, but the sun was just coming up and it was a gorgeous Los Angeles sky.

I just finished a 5.52 mi run with a pace of 9’23″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/01qh1h42 #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) November 15, 2012

This morning’s soundtrack:

Anthem — blink-182
…Baby One More Time — Spears, Britney
Blue Monday — Orgy
Celebrity Skin — Hole
Crazy People — Rehab
Duel of the Fates — Williams, John
End of the Line — Traveling Wilburys
Give the Po’ Man a Break — Fatboy Slim
The King of Bedside Manor — Barenaked Ladies
Letterbomb — Green Day
Nothin’ But the Taillights — Black, Clint
Out in the Cold — Petty, Tom & the Heartbreakers
All Downhill — Lovett, Lyle

Lights Will Guide You Home

dvg — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 17:07:51 +0000

I listened to Fix You by Coldplay three consecutive times at one point this morning during my run. It’s seriously not even close to the best song to hear while running; the pace is too slow, the beat changes, it’s horribly depressing, etc. But it is a great song and I love it, especially lately.

It was pretty cool to see the polling places on my first loop through Westwood and Beverly Hills. They were deserted and there were just a few volunteers arriving and hanging signs. On my second loop there were long lines of people waiting outside and dozens of people walking along my route with “I Voted” stickers. After I finished running I drank about a quart of orange juice and at least a half gallon of ice cold water. Then I showered and got dressed and walked to the Liberal Arts Masonic Temple on Westwood Blvd and voted.

I just finished a 13.0 mi run with a pace of 9’58″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/300dod #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) November 6, 2012

It took me two hours and ten minutes to go thirteen miles. Here are the songs I heard:

Callin’ Baton Rouge — Brooks, Garth
Armageddon It — Def Leppard
Rocket Science — Pimps, The
Sweet Home Alabama — Skynyrd, Lynyrd
How You Like Me Now — Heavy, The
Wake Up Little Susie — Everly Brothers, The
Light of Day (live) — Springsteen, Bruce
New Way Home — Foo Fighters
Little Lion Man — Mumford & Sons
Dirt Off Your Shoulder / Lying from You (live) (featuring Linkin Park) — Jay-Z
Counting Down The Hours — Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
Holiday — Green Day
Numb / Encore (featuring Linkin Park) — Jay-Z
Wonderful Night (featuring Lateef) — Fatboy Slim
‘Till I Collapse — Eminem
Give Me Novacaine — Green Day
One Week — Barenaked Ladies
Fix You — Coldplay
Fix You — Coldplay
Fix You — Coldplay
You Give Love a Bad Name — Bon Jovi
Mutt — blink-182
Jesus Of Suburbia / City Of The Damned / I Don’t Care / Dearly Beloved / Tales Of Another Broken Home — Green Day
Wake Up — Rage Against the Machine
Black Betty — Ram Jam
C’mon C’mon — Von Bondies, The

All These Things That I’ve Done

dvg — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 15:23:58 +0000

I just finished a 10.0 mi run with a pace of 9’29″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/01elt1ro #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) October 29, 2012

While all my friends and family on the East coast were hunkering down for Hurricane Sandy, I went on a ten mile run in painfully perfect weather. I am guessing it was about 55°F, which is warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt and just cold enough to feel great once you’ve warmed up sleeping muscles.

One of the half-dozen side loops I added to stretch my five mile route to ten took me through the middle of Beverly Hills, right by the Beverly Wilshire. It was fun to see all the boutique cupcake shops and stores selling $100 t-shirts for toddlers.

Here’s a tip: If you see a striking woman dressed exactly like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman walking the streets of Beverly Hills at 6:30 on a Monday morning, there’s a pretty good chance she is exactly what you think she is.

Ten miles is the longest run I’ve made since my last LA Marathon and I’m feeling it already. But I downed a 3.6 oz chocolate Häagen-Dazs while watching The Walking Dead last night, so I deserve the pain.

Here are the tunes I heard on my run. I need to update my running playlist.

American Girl (live) — Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Last Night — Traveling Wilburys
Come On, Eileen — Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Peacemaker — Green Day
(I Hate) Everything About You — Ugly Kid Joe
Holiday — Green Day
All These Things That I’ve Done — Killers
Remember the Name — Fort Minor
A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More “Touch Me” — Fall Out Boy
Knockout (featuring Nicki Minaj) — Lil Wayne
99 Problems — Jay-Z
No Sleep Tonight — The Faders
C’mon, C’mon — The Von Bondies
Scott Farcas Takes It on the Chin — Less Than Jake
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry — Bob Dylan
Under Smithville — For Squirrels
What’d I Say — Ray Charles
Desolation Row (cover) — My Chemical Romance
Mr. Chainsaw — Alkaline Trio
Monkey Wrench — Foo Fighters
Subterranean Homesick Blues — Bob Dylan
Devil With the Blue Dress On / Good Golly Miss Molly — Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels
See You Again — Miley Cyrus

© David Vincent Gagne, 2012. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: actors, Beverly Hills, exercise, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Marathon, movies, My Life, running, sports

Sushi Bars and Saxophones

dvg — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:46:36 +0000

I just finished a 5.01 mi run with a pace of 10’12″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/024hdqo2 #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) October 25, 2012

I did the P90X Plyometrics routine last night a little after nine o’clock, after I got my little boy into bed. (Take a minute to read an excellent review of this hellish torture.) That is more than more than enough of an excuse for my deplorable pace on this morning’s run.

On top of that, for the first time in my life my running was seriously affected by the weather. Not rain or sleet or snow or blistering heat; I’ve run in all those with no problem. No, I’m talking about the Santa Ana winds, which were flat-out howling around me the entire time. And they were painfully inconsistent, too. It’s not like half my run they were in my face and the other half they were at my back. They seemed to just be buffeting me from every direction. (I’ll admit it was pretty cool, though.)

Oh, and right at about the 3.6 mi mark I tripped on a chunk of sidewalk. I would kill to have seen what that looked like, because miraculously I managed to not fall. It felt like I actually flew through the air, my arms pinwheeling like Fred Flintstone and legs tumbling like Wile E. Coyote, with my head coming within a foot of smashing my face into the pavement but somehow then getting socked by my right knee back in some gyroscopic fashion to my normal upright position. It was an amazing few hundredths of a second, I think. My headphones separated from my iPhone, and I feel like I pulled every muscle in both legs, but otherwise everything was fine and — after hitting pause to make sure I wasn’t actually dead and just didn’t realize it yet — I continued on my way.

Here’s what I heard this morning:

The Dirty Glass — Dropkick Murphys
Hit the Road Jack — Ray Charles
I Try to Think about Elvis — Patty Loveless
All These Things That I’ve Done — Killers
My Coco — Stellastarr*
The Boxer — Simon & Garfunkel
‘Till I Collapse — Eminem
Beverly Hills — Weezer
Sugar, We’re Goin Down — Fallout Boy
Bruises — Chairlift
Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny) (featuring Nicole Scherzinger and The Pussycat Dolls) — AR Rahman

Great American Sharpshooter

dvg — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 17:14:21 +0000

I just finished a 8.50 mi run with a pace of 10’05″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/7qh63rk #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) October 22, 2012

Eight and a half miles early on a Monday morning feels a lot like an entire marathon. I’m starting to think that the main reason running in the evening seems easier and my pace is much faster is because my muscles are all loose from simply having been awake all day. Jumping out of bed and hitting the road was never an issue for me, but it seems like in the last few months my tendons and ligaments have decided they need stretching.

I guess the next time I run in the morning I’ll take ten minutes and stretch first to see if that helps.

If you’re paying attention to my routes, you’ll notice that I made all sorts of wacky loops today; I strayed dramatically from my standard path in an effort to hit eight miles. I also missed my turn onto Beverly Glen from Olympic because some wackjob driver was looking the wrong way and would have driven into me if I hadn’t been paying attention. Running in Los Angeles requires constant vigilance!

According to my Nike Running iOS app, I was on the road for an hour and twenty-five minutes, burned 1252 calories, and my pace was 10’05″/mile.

Continue reading Great American Sharpshooter ...

Big O Tires – West Los Angeles

dvg — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 22:17:41 +0000

I traded my trusty rusty 2006 Toyota Tacoma 4×4 for a 2004 Lexus RX330 when we had the boy. (I got a really, really good deal on the Lexus at Jim Falk Lexus of Beverly Hills.) A few weeks ago we topped 90,000 miles on it and I knew it was time for a new timing belt.

Getting a new timing belt — or really doing any sort of routine maintenance on a car — is always so annoying. You pay through the nose and when you’re done, your car is hopefully exactly the same.

I was dreading replacing the timing belt because I know it’s a big-ticket item. Sure enough, I called a half-dozen different places and everyone quoted me right around a grand for it. Apparently you’re muy loco if you don’t replace the water pump and a few other hoses and belts and stuff at the same time, since it’s some huge pain to disassemble that area of the car. Look, I’m not a car guy. I never have been. I don’t want to know anything about my car. I pay too much for it to also be required to care about its internal organs.

So I decided to get the timing belt service done at the Big O Tires near my house. I’ve gotten several other things done there and the prices seem fair and the employees are nice and it’s relatively close if I have to walk. I called two weeks ago and confirmed the price and that it would take a whole day. I called on Friday and asked if they could do it on Saturday and they said they could.

Yesterday at eight o’clock in the morning I drove to the Big O on Gateway Boulevard and Jose at the front desk told me it would be done by the early afternoon. I told him that I had a customer loyalty discount card good for 10% off any repairs and he said that they would deduct that from the bill when I came to get the car after it was finished. (Then I ran home through a slight foggy drizzle of rain; I looped all the way around the block up Santa Monica and down Beverly Glen.)

Sometime after the Gators beat the crap out of South Carolina I got a phone call from Jose, who told me that there were two A/C belts that needed to be replaced, too. He said they wouldn’t charge me for the labor since they already had that part of the car in pieces, but the belts cost $35 and $45. Of course I told him to go ahead and do that, even though I knew that the additional charge would effectively negate the 10% discount. C’est la vie.

I watched most of three or four other college football games while trapped in the house. Without a car seat I couldn’t drive anywhere with a toddler, but he loves watching sports with daddy, so I wasn’t too upset.

Jose called me at four o’clock in the afternoon to tell me the car was ready to go. He said that it would have been done sooner but they wanted to let it sit and run for a while to make sure everything was okay with it, that it wasn’t overheating and that everything had been reassembled properly. By then, though, my wife and I decided that we weren’t going to be leaving the house for the rest of the night and could just go grab it the next morning.

So I drove to Big O this morning at nine o’clock so I could get the Lexus and drive home to get my wife and son and then return immediately to get the other car. It ended up costing $1,004.32 with a $100 discount. (I have no idea why the discount was $100.00 instead of 10%, but didn’t feel like arguing.) When I got in the Lexus to drive home, I pulled out my phone to call my wife and let her know I’d be right there. While the phone was ringing I happened to look at the dashboard and I noticed that the “Check Engine” and two other warning lights were illuminated. So I hung up before she could answer and walked back into the office to let them know.

The older, Persian guy that seemed to be the manager on duty — the same guy who’d just charged my credit card — said that the lights were probably only showing because the mechanic forgot to reset them during the repair. He got some portable digital code reader thingamajig and plugged it into the car underneath the steering wheel. I sat in the passenger seat and watched what he was doing, which seemed to be mostly just staring at the display as if he couldn’t read English. After about five minutes of making confused-sounding grunts and mumbles, he asked me to close my door and he backed out of the parking spot and we drove around the block.

He asked me how far I’d gone before the lights came on and I explained that I hadn’t even put the car in Drive, that I’d only turned the car on and hadn’t driven at all. He said that either the code wasn’t reset by the mechanic or the sensor had come loose during the repair. We pulled back into the Big O parking lot and he fiddled with the portable computer and all the lights went off. He said that the lights should “probably” stay off now and that if they came back on to return and they’d take a look at it. I thanked him and left the lot.

I drove just about a half mile and was about to make a left onto Sepulveda when I saw that all the same lights had come back on. So I made a U-turn and went back into the Big O office.

The old guy told me that they’d need to disassemble the whole thing to determine what was wrong, and that it would take “a few hours, at least,” and they’d call me as soon as it was finished.

I was very, very upset because we’d planned on making a drive into the Valley this afternoon, and because it would mean another day of being trapped in the house, and also, obviously, because I had just spent $1,000 to get the damn thing fixed.

I didn’t have much choice in the matter, so I got in my other car to leave. But that car wouldn’t start. I wasn’t paying attention when I woke up and didn’t realize it was out of gas and running on fumes. So now I was really angry, since I haven’t had a car run out of gas on me since I was sixteen and driving a 1976 Ford Mercury Monarch with a broken fuel gauge. It also meant I had to go back and ask this guy — that I’d just finished yelling at — if I could borrow a gas can so I could walk to a gas station.

He wouldn’t have any of that and gave one of his mechanics the keys to his car to drive me to the nearest gas station with one of those red plastic jugs. (Gas at the 76 on Pico around the corner was $5.29/gallon for the cheap stuff, by the way.) We drove back and I poured the gas into the car — a fun task which involved holding the inlet valve open with a foot-long screwdriver — and thanked them and left.

On the way home I stopped at the Sepulveda West Car Wash because (a) they also sell gas for “only” $4.79/gal and (b) I paid them $55.00 a few weeks ago for unlimited car washes for a month, and the car was pretty filthy.

At about one-thirty this afternoon I got a call from Big O. It was the old Persian guy and he was calling to tell me that because “we” had driven the car with the sensor not properly seated, it was broken and would need to be replaced. He ordered the part online, but since it’s Sunday there’s no way for them to get the replacement part until tomorrow. He apologized and told me that he wouldn’t charge me for the repair.

At that point I flipped out. I told him that not only would I not pay for the repair, but that I wanted some part of my $1,000 back, and that I was pissed, and that it sucked because now on top of everything else — including being trapped at home all weekend — I was going to have to stay home from work tomorrow to get the car. He was very fatalistic about the whole thing, with a lot of, “These things happen,” and, “Such is life,” sort of comments, which absolutely was not the right tactic to use with me at the moment. He seemed to truly not understand why I was so upset, and was annoyed with me for not being grateful that he wasn’t going to charge me to fix the broken sensor.

It’s very frustrating because I’ve been there multiple times over the years for all sorts of different repairs and I’ve never been disappointed.

But I will not be going there again.

© David Vincent Gagne, 2012. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: automobiles, cars, driving, exercise, Los Angeles, My Life, running

Long Hard Times to Come

dvg — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 05:25:59 +0000

I just finished a 7.01 mi run with a pace of 9’38″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/07v99rq #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) October 18, 2012

That was my longest run in quite some time. I was wrecked by the time I finished; I was really pushing myself the whole time.

Just for the heck of it I weighed myself before and after it. When I left the house I weighed 196.4 lbs, and when I returned I weighed 192.0 lbs. That is a lot of sweat!

Here are the songs I heard:

I’ve Just Seen a Face — The Beatles
Long Hard Times to Come (featuring T.O.N.E-Z) — Gangstagrass
St. Jimmy (live) — Green Day
Combat Baby — Metric
The Ballad of John and Yoko — The Beatles
How’s My Driving, Doug Hastings? — Less Than Jake
No Sleep Tonight — The Faders
My Life Would Suck Without You — Kelly Clarkson
Light of Day (live) — Bruce Springsteen
Knockout (featuring Nicki Minaj) — Lil’ Wayne
See You Again — Miley Cyrus
Holiday (live) — Green Day
Mr. Brightside — Killers
I’m Shipping Up to Boston — Dropkick Murphys
C’mon C’mon — The Von Bondies
Subterranean Homesick Blues — Bob Dylan
Wake Up — Rage Against the Machine
Viva La Vida — Coldplay

Somewhere Across Forever

dvg — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:41:40 +0000

I managed to hit my new goal of 3500 Nike Fuel points on Sunday, so I feel pretty good about that. (I did the P90X Shoulders & Arms workout in the middle of the afternoon.) After an early dinner at Lakeside Golf Club, my wife and I watched this week’s Saturday Night Live, part three of the Real Housewives of New Jersey Reunion Special, Dexter, Homeland, and the season premier of The Walking Dead. (Sunday nights are traditionally when we go ape with the TV.)

I was pretty thick and syrupy when I crawled out of bed at six o’clock. It felt like it took me forever to get into a good stride on my run. By the time I passed the Century Plaza Towers, though, I was cruising. My mom and I used to joke all the time about how crazy it was that I live down the street from Nakatomi Plaza, but for the life of me I can’t remember if we ever talked about the fact that I also live right next to the Remington Steele buildings. Damn, she loved that show. Damn, I miss her.

I just finished a 6.54 mi run with a pace of 9’43″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/8iddd3 #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) October 15, 2012

Here’s what I heard while I ran today:

Somebody Told Me — Killers
Los Angeles — Sugarcult
Surrender — Cheap Trick
Holiday — Green Day
A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More “Touch Me” — Fall Out Boy
Desolation Row (cover) — My Chemical Romance
Tear You Apart — She Wants Revenge
… Baby One More Time — Britney Spears
Death and All His Friends — Coldplay
Wake Up — Rage Against the Machine
Somewhere Across Forever — Stellastarr*
Wonderful Night (featuring Lateef) — Fatboy Slim
Monkey Wrench — Foo Fighters
I’ve Just Seen a Face — The Beatles

© David Vincent Gagne, 2012. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: exercise, Los Angeles, music, My Life, running, television

Counting Down the Hours

dvg — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:34:40 +0000

I just finished a 6.08 mi run with a pace of 10’00″/mi with Nike+ Running. go.nike.com/1jdudh4 #nikeplus

— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) October 11, 2012

Clearly I need to write more here to avoid this turning into simply a log of my running.

It was chilly and misty at six o’clock this morning when I left the house. A few drops hit my face as I ran by Hillcrest Country Club but otherwise the rain waited until about five minutes after I got back to the house. I didn’t get to sleep until one o’clock in the morning — and that was on a very full stomach, including a glass of wine and a cappuccino — so I was sort of lugubrious for the first half hour. I did take a detour up Beverly Glen to Santa Monica Boulevard and then down Century Park West back to Olympic, which was enough to stretch my loop to six miles.

This was my soundtrack:

Jesus of Suburbia (live) — Green Day
Fast As You — Dwight Yoakam
Counting Down the Hours — Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
End of the Line — Traveling Wilburys
Pennsylvania — Bloodhound Gang
My Life Would Suck Without You — Kelly Clarkson
Hot Rod Lincoln — Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
Desolation Row (cover) — My Chemical Romance
New Way Home — Foo Fighters
Bridge and Tunnel Authority — Less Than Jake
Hello, Goodbye — The Beatles
Eastbound & Down — Jerry Reed
Get Free — The Vines
Remember the Name — Fort Minor